wind in the willows

So, back in mid-May, I ordered some hybrid willows from Farmer Seed Company in Faribault, Minnesota. They were six for $23.74, so thought I’d give them a try. They took a long time to come — Farmer was probably out in the field hoeing the strawberries. Anyway, they came yesterday and I planted them today. They’re supposed to grow up to 20 feet in a season, but we’ll see what our poor soil brings. There’s one very close to the water on the west side. The purpose is to block neighbors. If these live, I’ll get more.

HAHAHA. It’s just a stick, but hopefully it’ll like having its feet in the water and will grow big and leafy to block out the neighbor’s view of our dock and firepit.

Here’s his brother.

I also put a couple up by the deck to block view of all the fun things I do on the deck. Like type drivel on my blog.

I also ordered some Irish Moss from Farmer. I put one on the steps in the lake garden and two in the succulent garden as a ground cover. We’ll see how they do in covering that ground. There’s conflicting information online about whether they like sun or shade, but Stepables says they like cool sun in northern climes.

For some reason, I forgot that I already had creeping thyme on the hillside in the lake garden, so I ordered more. Sometime I’d like to remove the old deck-like doorstep/porch on the east side and replace it with a stone or paver entrance with groundcover growing between the stones. Not sure how much traffic they’ll take. Pavers are heavy and expensive, but I’ve been looking at hypertufa which is made from concrete and other stuff. You can make whatever shapes you want and apparently it lasts forever. I’ll see what it takes.

This would look nice as a stone patio. We’ll see.

So I have this metal coat rack that I don’t really need inside in the summer so I planted three thunbergia under it and helped their climbing efforts with string. (Well, it’s really Sugar and Spice cotton yarn, but I guess I’ll have one less dishcloth.) There are two African Sunsets and a regular yellow.